Keep up-to-date with new releases with Let’s Go eith the Children!
The below film guides are written with families and children in mind. Everything from small-scale films to great blockbusters for all the family! Please note that not all 12A films are appropriate for younger children. Let’s Go With The Children offers a guide to what’s suitable for family viewing.
Let’s Go With The Children will keep you up to date with what you can see both on the big screen and via streaming or download sites.
The Wild Robot in cinemas October 18th
Lilo & Stitch director Chris Sanders fashions a gorgeous-looking ode to compassion and the wonders of nature in this feature-length CG adventure, based on Peter Brown’s book series of the same name. Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o voices the titular robot Rozzum ‘Roz’ 7134 who washes ashore on a seemingly deserted island. There she becomes the unexpected protector of an orphaned gosling, which she names Brightbill (voiced by Kit Connor).
Paddington in Peru in cinemas November 8th, 2024
The Paddington movies carry the delicious tang of a marmalade sandwich, sweet and somehow spicy in equal measure. The previous two movies, helmed by director Paul King, adapted Michael Bond’s original stories with a startlingly assured touch, beautifully melding whimsy, humour and an array of memorably scene-stealing performances, notably Hugh Grant’s villainous Phoenix Buchanan. King has stepped aside for the third Paddington movie, which takes Ben Whishaw’s well-meaning ursine back to his home country for another adventure that’s sure to be laden with laughs and pathos.
Buffalo Kids PG in cinemas 11th October
Mary (Alisha Weir) and Tom (Conor Macneill) are parentless Irish siblings who arrive in New York City via ocean liner in 1886 and quickly find themselves on a wild, cross-country journey aboard a transcontinental “Orphan Train” where they meet an extraordinary new friend who will change their lives forever. Fuelled by curiosity, friendship, and teamwork, their dangerous and discovery-filled journey will introduce them to devious villains, surprising allies, unexpected heroes, and unimaginable adventures on a hilarious and heart-warming search for home.
Moana 2 – released November 29th, 2024
Disney’s eagerly awaited sequel to their 2016 hit reunites us with the plucky Polynesian hero Moana and her loveable goofy demi-god sidekick Maui (Dwayne Johnson). Expect more breathtaking sights and sounds as the waves crash over us and the story takes us to the very edges of the much-mythologized Oceania.
Inside Out 2 (PG)
Released in 2015, the original ranks among Pixar’s finest, alongside the Toy Story series and Up. Now, eight years later we revisit Riley (Kensington Tallman)’s emotions as she turns 13, those operating the console inside her emotional Headquarters still lining up as the primal emotions of irrepressible yellow Joy (Amy Poehler), the green Disgust (Liza Lapira taking over from Mindy Kaling), red Anger (Lewis Black), blue Sadness (Phyllis Smith) and the purple Fear (Tony Hale replacing Bill Hader). They’ve created a new section of Riley’s mind called her Sense of Self, the repository of the memories and feelings that form Riley’s core personality, Joy having consigned any negative memories to the back of her mind.
A star player on the school hockey team alongside best friends Bree and Grace, the trio are invited to take part in a hockey camp so she can apply for a place on the team at her new high school. However, the emotions are shocked when a demolition crew barges in to tear the place apart and reconstruct it for Riley’s new phase. And, even more when, as with Harry Enfield’s Kevin the Teenager, the transition into puberty brings out an overnight change, the hitherto sweet Riley waking up and telling her mother (Diane Lane) to back off, and being snappy with dad (Kyle MacLachlan), every interaction with the console causing her to overreact. And that’s just the start as, to their surprise, puberty ushers in a whole new crew of emotions, headed up by orange wide-mouthed nervous wreck Anxiety (Maya Hawke), catty cyan Envy (Ayo Edibiri), the pink and bulky Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser) in his grey hoodie and the snooty Indigo-coloured bored Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos), or Ui Ui as Joy calls him, who lounges on the couch.
With Riley having learnt her besties are going to a different school, Anxiety takes over plaguing her with all manner of insecurities and negative scenarios about what lies ahead, seeing her torn between sticking with her friends or trying to act cool and become part of a new clique headed up by Val (Lilimar), the star player on the Firehawks, the team at her new school. Clashes between Joy and the misguidedly overprotective Anxiety over how Riley should act leads to her Sense Of Self being dumped at the back of her mind and Joy and the other emotions on her team being quite literally bottled up and imprisoned by the Mind Cops in a vault that also holds various imaginary characters from Riley’s head, including a giant dark hooded figure representing her deepest dark secret, video game character Lance Slashblade on whom the younger Riley had a crush and the hand drawn Bloofy and Pouchy from her favourite childhood TV show. The task now is to somehow get to the Back of the Mind and make it back to Headquarters and restore Riley’s Sense of Self before she has a total meltdown.
Decidedly busier than the first film with all the new characters, even so it’s still rooted in the same premise about being in touch with our feelings, the message being that we are defined by all of them, the negative and the positive, and how both can lead us astray in attempting to fit in, and not repressing sides of ourselves for fear of being judged. It’s also awash with more wittily clever wordplay, Joy and the others finding themselves teetering on the Sar Chasm, riding down the Stream Of Consciousness, being assailed by a Brainstorm of ideas (including a very Big one) and Joy trying to calm the frantic Anxiety down with a cup of Anxi Tea. There’s also an occasional before her time appearance by the elderly Nostalgia (June Squibb) and a UK only cameo by television personality Sam Thompson as Security Man Sam. It doesn’t have quite the novelty of the first film, but the emotions it will uncork in its audience all come bubbling to the sniffle surface.
96 minutes
Cinemas
The Garfield Movie (PG)
A sort of origin movie for the internationally famous lazy, Mondays-hating, lasagne-loving, snarky cartoon ginger fat cat, the opening scenes reveal how, apparently abandoned in an alley by his street cat dad Vic (Samuel L Jackson), kitten Garfield (Chris Pratt) spots Jon Arbuckle (Nicholas Hoult) in an Italian restaurant and, taking an instant liking for pepperoni pizza and all things pasta, cutely inveigles his way into his life and refrigerator, even allowing him to have a canine companion, yellow beagle Odie (Harvey Guillén), who becomes his own personal factotum.
Fast forward several years and furry pounds, and who should re-enter Garfield’s life, upsetting his lazy life of scoffing carbs and watching Catflix but Vic, who needs his estranged offspring’s help in settling a debt to his old street gang Persian cat boss Jinx (Hannah Waddingham) by stealing gallons of milk to make up for the time she spent in the pound on his account.
The plan is to break into the heavily fortified Lactose Farms dairy theme park and steal thousands of bottles, to which end they need to recruit its cast-aside former mascot Otto (Ving Rhames), a grumpy bull with a penchant for dramatic pauses, by promising to reunite him with the cow of his life, Unfortunately, they also have to deal with Animal Control officer Marge (Cecily Strong) and Jinx’s numbskull henchmen, musclebound Shar Pei Roland and weaselly whippet Nolan.
It’ll come as no surprise to learn the real reason Vic abandoned Garfield as the film follows a warmly familiar parent-child reconciliation path, but, alongside the whiskers-wetting sentimentality, there’s a steady stream of fun adventures and action not to mention a voice cameo by Snoop Dogg as Scoop Catt and, given, the trio’s Mission Impossible-style heist, amusing gags about Tom Cruise (“In case you’re wondering, I do my own stunts!”, says Garfield) and even a steal from the Top Gun score.
Unlike the cartoon strip which is very much written for grown-ups, this colourfully and zappily animated affair is predominantly pitched at a kiddie audience who should lap it up while waiting for the next appearance by the Minions while offering other gags to entertain the adults too, as well as a warning about keeping tabs on their children using their smartphones to run up a huge Deliveroo bill.
101 mins
Cinemas
IF (U)
Actor-writer-director John Krasinski makes his family movie debut with this at times messy but ultimately charmingly sweet and touching animated and live-action ode to the magic of childhood imagination and its loss as we grow older.
Her mother having died when she was young and her forever joking father (Krasinski) in hospital with a physically and metaphorically broken heart, in-a-hurry-to-grow-up 12-year-old (“I’m not a child”) New Yorker Bea (the disarmingly winning Cailey Fleming) moves in with her grandmother Margaret (Fiona Shaw). Glimpsing what she believes to be girl who lives upstairs, she ventures up to explore and meets Cal (Ryan Reynolds dialling down the flippancy in favour of sincerity), who insists he lives alone. However, following him one evening, she finds herself introduced to the world of IFs, or imaginary friends, such as the massive, furry and very purple Blue (Steve Carell) and Blossom (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), the Betty Boop crossed with a butterfly figure she spied earlier and who lives in Cal’s apartment. Like Cal, only she can see them. It’s a bit like The Sixth Sense for kids – I see imaginary people.
Cal introduces her to the Coney Island retirement home for IFs, who, like the discarded toys in Toy Story (the film also knowingly borrows from Monsters Inc.), have long been forgotten by their former children. It’s Cal, Blue and Blossom’s mission to reunite them with their old kids (in Blue’s case Bobby Moynihan’s dispirited Jeremy) or to find someone else to need them.
Blossom, it turns out was her grandmother’s IF and still keeps a watchful eye on her, while Bea tries to find an IF who can bond with Benjamin (Alan Kim), the young boy she meets on her visits to see her dad. In the process, she rediscovers her own still beating inner child, and it’s not too hard to work out who was her IF.
There’s a star-studded voice cast of cameos as the array of IFs, among them Bradley Cooper as an ice-cube in a half-full water glass, Christopher Meloni’s over-enthusiastic raincoated spy, Amy Schumer’s giant red gummy bear, Louis Gossett Jr. as elderly teddy bear Lewis, Matt Damon’s sunflower Sunny, Sam Rockwell as Guardian Dog, Awkwafina as Bubble (a bubble!), Blake Lively as Octopuss, a cat in an octopus costume, George Clooney’s astronaut, Vince Vaughn as Dragon, Krasinski’s wife Emily Blunt as the English-accented Unicorn and Krasinski himself as Marshmallow Man. There’s even Brad Pitt as the invisible Frank.
They’re all great fun but also contribute to the underlying sadness of once loved imaginary companions who have outlived their usefulness, the warmly sentimental and melancholic film ultimately and often quite poignantly (as with Jeremy and the smell of a freshly baked croissant, for those who get the Proust reference) reconnecting them once more. There’s some wonderful flourishes of imagination, such as the musical sequence in the retirement home to Tina Turner’s Better Be Good To Me, and Cal falling into and climbing out of a work of art, his clothes covered in paint, the film a ray of light and a heartfelt reminder that there’s still magic and hope in an often cynical world.
104 mins
Cinemas
